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Student Name Tutor: Course: 21 January 2013 African American cinema Meet the Browns is a Tyler Perry's American sitcom. The show tells a story of a family living in Decatur, Georgia led by the family head Mr. Brown and his daughter Cora Simmons. The show premiered on January 7, 2009 and run till November 18, 2011 on TBS. The shows main stars are David Mann and Tamela Mann. The two had earlier starred in the earlier stage play and motion picture of the series (Soeters 25). Meet the Browns follows the misfortunes of Brown. After Browns father Pop Brown passes on, he leaves Brown his old worn-out house. Brown plans to sell the house until he finds a letter asking him to take care of the old. Brown only reads the first few pages and gets to believe that his Daddy wanted him to take care of the aged. This brings forth Brown Meadows, the retirement home so as to fulfill his deceased fathers will. Together in this venture are his fellow family members Cora who is Brown's daughter by Madea, Will who is Brown's nephew from his sister Vera, and Sasha Will's wife. House of Payne is yet another American comedy/drama television series created and produced by Tyler Perry. The show revolves around a family living under one roof in Atlanta led by headman Curtis Payne and his wife Ella. The show premiered on June 21, 2006. However it wasnt until June 6, 2007 when new episodes were broadcast exclusively on TBS until August

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10, 2012. It was mainly a comedy sitcom but it also featured dark themes such as substance abuse and addiction. The setting of Tyler Perrys House of Payne, is a tidy ranch with black shutters and a neat landscape. The landowner, Curtis Payne, also known as Pops, is an aging firefighter who is well off enough to own a place to sustain his extended family. The house has no state of the art household facilities but it displays appointments detailed enough to convey that the Paynes occupy a position in the upper ranges of the working class (Daft 76). Good Times is an American sitcom that premiered in mid-season 1974 to widespread critical acclaim and audience popularity. It focused exclusively on African-American family life. Therefore it became a source for groundbreaking social commentary in compliment to its partiality for funny family comedy. The comedy revolves around the lives of James and Florida Evans, an African-American family with three children. Their eldest son J.J. is a ladies man who adores painting. The second born, a girl named Thelma is a moderator on the passions of her two brothers while the youngest son Michael is always involved in a cause to reach out to others. The family is from time to time visited by Florida's best friend from high school, Willona who also lives in the project. Too Old Blues is The Good Times series premiere in which patriarch James is excited at the prospect of being hired for a new high-paying job. However, while at the interview James learns that the training program for the job only accepts qualified applicants aged 18-35. He finds himself too old for the job at 42. Meanwhile back at home, Florida and the kids have put together a surprise party ignorant that James was rejected (Miller 25). Stereotypes of African Americans in the United States are generalities about AfricanAmericans or African-American culture. These stereotypes date back to colonial years of

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settlement more so after slavery became a racial institution that was hereditary. Even during the 20th century some still claimed blacks were inferior. For example, in 1916 Lewis Terman wrote in The Measurement of Intelligence: Black and other ethnic minority children are uneducable beyond the nearest rudiments of training. There is no possibility at present of convincing society that they should not be allowed to reproduce, although from a eugenic point of view they constitute a grave problem because of their unusual prolific breeding (Robert 28). The entertainment scene was not spared by these misunderstandings. In the early days of film and television, African-Americans really struggled hard to tell their stories their own way because white supremacy ruled over the entertainment industry. So the whites dictated what images African-Americans had to depict. African-Americans finally gained a voice in the industry with the dawn of the films of the 1970s. These films aimed to educate young, urban blacks and encourage them to confront their white persecutors. They demonstrated acts of discrimination against them. As more and more African-American filmmakers arose, the emerging themes shifted to films that focused less on infuriating the African-Americans against their oppressors. Many simply glorified African-Americans and their emerging place and roles in society (Lichter 34). The TV series Good Times was a black mans situation comedy. Its basis was an AfricanAmerican Chicago family setting during the height of the civil rights movement (Deane 20). The drama took place in the integrated hybrid category of African-American sitcoms. This means that the comedy often had aggressive stereotypical features present such as mammy. However, these physiognomies took place in an old-style white sitcom platform and often had allusions to the civil rights movement that was taking place at the time. Initially it was created to show AfricanAmericans in a different and more positive light. As a result it gained popularity among both

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African-Americans and White audience quickly. Hence it was no surprise the series was rated number seventeen for the 1973-1974 seasons (Ingram 24). However, as the show went on, it started to deviate from its original purpose as the popularity of character JJ grew. Due to the JJ character of being a buffoonish minstrel, with time he lost favor among his fellow actors. Eventually some of his fellow actors left the show. Attempting to go on with the show and regain ratings, the comedys producers concentrated the show around the mischiefs of JJ. Despite their efforts the show's ratings continued to fall and the show was eventually cancelled. This raises the question whether Good Times show did portray African-Americans in a positive manner to the American public, or did it ruin more positive identity of African-Americans. This 1970's TV comedy series opened up the life of a poor black family in America at the time. The family was simply trying to get by and live a modest life in the projects of Chicago. When people sat to watch this show they really did not care that these actors and actresses were African-Americans or not since the show was hilarious and people had a good time watching it. The dad, John Amos was depicted as a positive spirited black man. He preserved the house together and kept it robust as a whole. He also demonstrated a black man who had labored to where he was all his entire life. He was a shrewd man who understood well his role in the family. The mother, Esther Rolle was the one who kept the entire house lucid. Just like a mother does, she was the backbone of the family. On the other hand, JJ was portrayed as a young talented African-American painter. He was a compassionate, warm hearted young black man. He was also ambitious trying to better himself, whiles at the same time entertaining the whole family as well as the audience with his

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wild behaviors. On the contrary, the youngest son Michael was the irritable one in the bunch. He was a typical young boy who had to deal with day to day stress. This was unlike his elder brother JJ, who did very many funny things on the show that made the audience amused at his presence. The producer might have represented him as a bit rebellious, but he was still a warm-hearted boy. He was also allied to gang members, but still this does not portray him as a wicked person. Thelma was the daughter who was full of surprises. She from time to time did things that the people in the family would not expect her to do. This may be attributed to her quickness to temper, her college studentship, or the sex magazines found by her mother in her possession, but she was always full of unexpected behaviors (Litcher and Amundson 34).

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Works cited

Robert, Williams. Racism Learned at an Early Age Through Racial Scripting. New York: Cengage Learning, 2007. Print. Lichter, Samuel and Amundson Daniel. Center for Media and Public Affairs: Don't Blink, 2004.print.